


Of Stray Cats and Collars with Bells On

by orphan_account



Series: Catlock [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-05
Updated: 2011-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:21:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds a stray cat in 221b, and wishes it would just go away. The cat, it would seem, has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Stray Cats and Collars with Bells On

The cat was on the windowsill when John noticed it. At first, he thought it was asleep until it turned its head to look at him with that bored expression common to every cat under the sun.

John didn’t see a cat, though. He saw sharp claws and Satan incarnate and didn’t want any part of it.

Keeping a wary eye on the animal, John backed into the kitchen to fetch a broom. If the little black demon found its way up to the first floor window, it could make its way down just as easily. As he approached the cat, it stared at him, seeming to almost dare him to do what he was thinking.

“Go on, get,” John told it, trying to warn it off.

The cat continued to stare at him, so he used the broom to push it off the edge. He ignored the animal’s offended screeching and shut the window.

Any normal animal might have worked out, after being nudged out of a first story window, that they should find somewhere new skulk around. Cats, John determined, were not normal creatures. And this particular cat seemed to have no sense of self-preservation. As John returned home from the surgery, he walked into the flat to find the lean black creature sprawled out on the sofa, managing to take up the entire thing despite its small size. This time it actually was asleep, and John took full tactical advantage, reaching for its scruff and lifting it up. Holding it, now wriggling and throwing its claws around, at arm’s length, he was rather taken by how light the animal actually was. He vaguely contemplated taking the thing to a shelter where it would get fed, but dismissed the idea as soon as claws found flesh and tore into his arm.

“You little fucker,” he spat, dropping it to the floor.

For a moment, he considered hunting the thing down, but gave up on the idea when it bolted out of the flat and down the stairs, presumably to leave the way it had come in. Just as well. He was bleeding and needed to clean the wound out. There was no telling what else that creature had put its claws into, and John wasn’t about to catch some deadly infection.

He was standing in front of the kitchen sink, letting the water run over his arm when Sherlock wandered in.

“We have a cat problem,” John told him.

Sherlock peered over his shoulder to see what John was up to. “If anything, _you_ have a cat problem,” Sherlock observed.

“It’s your flat too,” John told him. “And I’ve no idea how it keeps getting in. Twice now. And this time…”

He nodded at his arm, which had finally stopped bleeding. Sherlock frowned at it. “It’s my understanding they only do that if they feel agitated. What did you do to him?”

John turned off the tap and grabbed a small towel he had set aside. “You’re taking its side. Of course you are,” he muttered. “After it did this to me.”

“And you’re still avoiding telling me what you did to him,” Sherlock pointed out with a smug smile. “Besides, that’s barely a scratch. Nothing at all like being thrown out of a window.”

John only rolled his eyes and pushed past Sherlock to go make sure that everything on the ground floor was closed up tightly enough to keep out unwanted felines.

John was certain that the cat was mocking him now. It was the only explanation for waking up at half three to find it sitting on the foot of his bed, staring at him.

“That’s just creepy,” he muttered to himself.

He sat up to chase the cat out, but it was quicker than he was and had darted out of the room before John was able to even sit up completely. He briefly contemplated finding where it had gone and chasing it out of the house all together, but one glance at the clock quieted that idea at once.

It could just stay inside and maybe wind up as part of one of Sherlock’s experiments, then. Would serve it right, too.

The next time the cat made an appearance in the flat, John was ready. He pretended to ignore it for the time it took to go through every room and make sure all of the windows were closed. Most were, but he was entirely unsurprised to find both windows in Sherlock’s room wide open, despite the heavy rain outside. And of course, the fire escape was outside his room – no doubt how Baker Street’s newest pest kept finding its way in. Shaking his head, John shut both windows.

On his way back out to the sitting room, John grabbed a small cardboard box that he had set aside for just such an occasion and quickly brought it down over the cat, trapping it inside.

“Ha!” he crowed. “Got you now, don’t I?”

The cat thrashed underneath the box as John slid a second bit of cardboard under the box, effectively closing the cat inside. Holding the two together whilst descending the stairs proved a bit tricky, but he managed to make his way to the door. With just a small amount of luck, he managed to get it open and tossed the cat outside onto the pavement.

“Go home!” he shouted at it before shutting the door.

He didn’t see Sherlock again until the next morning, but that was hardly unusual. What was unusual was finding Sherlock buried in blankets on the sofa.

“You all right?” John asked.

Sherlock just glared at him, but the look on his face gave him away. He was clearly ill, for what John realised was the first time since they’d known one another. Ignoring Sherlock’s death glare, John stepped close and put his hand against his friend’s face.

“You’re burning up,” he said. “What were you getting up to yesterday?”

“My latest tormentor decided to see to it that I got pneumonia,” Sherlock said. “That or he was trying to drown me. I can’t be certain.”

John frowned at him. “He might have succeeded on the first one. Do we need to tell Lestrade what’s going on?”

“Not worth it. No point in pressing charges anyway.”

John bit his tongue and left Sherlock on the sofa to put the kettle on. He wasn’t sure what latest adventure Sherlock had been on, but he was equally uncertain that Sherlock would ever be honest with him about it. The man loved dramatics, and it seemed as though half-truths were his preferred method for creating suspense.

John made a quick cup of tea and brought it back out to the sulking mess on the sofa.

“Lots of fluids,” he said, handing the mug over. “Have you been coughing?”

Sherlock shook his head. “Like you care,” he muttered.

“Of course I care,” John insisted.

Sherlock just glared at him again, which John took as a signal to just give up. He’d learned that arguments were easier to handle if he just let Sherlock win, no matter how blatantly wrong he was.

“Well, I’ll just be over here, not caring, if you need me,” John said as he settled into one of the chairs by the fire.

He turned on the telly and settled back, briefly contemplating his own cup of tea.

“You know,” he said, utterly failing at pretending not to care. “Keeping your bedroom windows open all the time can’t be helping. I’m surprised you’re not ill more often.”

“Keeping them open prevents it,” Sherlock told him. “It was working just fine until _someone_ took it upon themselves to close everything up.”

“I’m just saying,” John told him. “Something to think about.”

Sherlock put his tea down and rolled over, putting his back to John. John only shook his head and turned down the volume to better listen for any signs of distress from his hopefully sleeping friend.

John didn’t see the cat again for another four months. He had rather foolishly assumed that the cat had taken his advice and gone home, but seeing the creature sprawled out in front of the fire in the sitting room silenced that theory.

“Sherlock?” he called out.

No answer. That man would light a fire and then swan off somewhere. Irresponsible git. Shaking his head, John shut off the gas to the fireplace and pulled his phone from his trousers.

“That’s it,” he said. “Phoning animal control. This is ridiculous.”

The cat went from peacefully asleep to glaring at him in under a second, which John found more than a bit unnerving.

“What?” he asked. “Got a problem with that? I’ve warned you.”

He reached for his laptop to be able to look up the appropriate number, but before he’d even pulled up the page, the cat had scarpered. Just the same, John found the number anyway and programmed it into his phone’s contact list.

If John had suspected it before, he was certain that the cat was now mocking him. Nearly every time he left the flat, he’d return to find the cat waiting for him, only to dart out of the room before he could even blink. It was there every morning when he woke up, sometimes staring at him, and sometimes taking up more room than it should have been able to. The thing couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds; how it was able to be in the way of the entire sitting room, John could never figure out. Whatever the case, he was certain that the cat had picked that particular patch of floor _because_ it was in the way of everything.

Sometimes, the cat would leave on its own, and sometimes, John would force the cat to leave. Very occasionally, he’d find himself just too tired to be bothered, and let the cat stay where it was. It was in the flat more and more, and he was seeing even less of Sherlock than usual. While that did mean fewer nasty experiments to endure, it did leave him feeling oddly lonely, and more than a little bored.

He realised this must have been the case when he let the cat up onto his lap and didn’t immediately throw it back down to the floor.

“I don’t want a cat,” he told it. “You’re in the way, you get hair on everything, and I still haven’t forgiven you for tearing my arm open.”

The cat narrowed its eyes slightly. It was reciprocating some level of intolerance toward John, he guessed. Probably hadn’t forgiven him either. If the grudge his grandmother’s cat held against him was anything to go by, this cat never would forgive him.

“You really don’t want to stay here,” John told it, daring to stroke its head. “The only way I’m keeping you is if you’re declawed and castrated.”

The cat narrowed its eyes further and very slowly put its claws into John’s thighs. More of a warning than anything. Almost like it was daring him to try.

“Don’t believe me?” John asked.

Another quick pinch with its claws, and the cat jumped down off of his lap and lazily walked out of the room. Once it was gone, John reached for his phone and keys and left for the pub. Anything to keep him from talking to pushy stray cats like the madman he was apparently on his way to becoming.

When he returned home several hours later, he was almost surprised to find a dearth of cat and an abundance of pyjama-clad flatmate on the sofa.

“Good to see you’re back with us,” John said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Out,” Sherlock said.

“Case?” asked John, glad to be having a proper, two-sided conversation.

He settled back into his chair, brushing the same cat hair from his chest that he’d been trying to brush off all evening. Disgusting creatures.

“Nothing worth my time,” Sherlock said. “London’s been annoyingly well-behaved lately.”

“Good news for the rest of London,” John pointed out.

Sherlock only snorted. Suddenly, he twisted himself around to be able to face John, albeit upside-down.

“John,” he said. “While it’s nice to see that you two are getting on finally, I do think I should tell you that I’d appreciate if you left all veterinary matters up to me.”

John blinked. “Hang on, it’s yours?” he asked.

Sherlock took a moment to consider the question. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose that’s an accurate way of describing it, yes.”

“This whole time. Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked.

“You seemed to dislike him enough that the possibility of you asking me to get rid of him seemed very real,” Sherlock said.

“No, I think you’re lying to me,” John said. “You wouldn’t care what I’d said, and would have just kept it out of spite, I think. What aren’t you telling me?”

Sherlock stared at him for a moment before finding his way to his feet and making an entirely too leisurely line for his bedroom. It only took a few moments for John to realise that he was meant to follow, and heaving a sigh, got to his feet.

Lestrade was right. It was like dealing with a child.

He slowly pushed open Sherlock’s bedroom door, rather surprised to find no sign of Sherlock inside. Just his dressing gown and pyjamas laid out on the foot of the bed and…

And the cat. Sitting calmly on the bed and staring at him.

“Sherlock?” John called out, as though expecting his flatmate to jump out from behind a door and go ‘boo’ at him.

The cat narrowed its eyes, probably only because it wasn’t physically able to roll them, John realised.

“Sherlock?” he asked tentatively.

This was ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t Sherlock. It was just a cat.

A very bored-looking cat. That was never in the same room as Sherlock, now that John thought about it.

“Right,” John said hesitantly. “So, you’re a cat… thing. And I pushed you out the window and gave you pneumonia.”

And threatened to castrate him, but John didn’t even want to vocalise that little detail again.

“Starting to see why you didn’t tell me,” he said. “I’m still not sure I believe it.”

If the cat – Sherlock – could have rolled its eyes, John was certain that it would have done just then. Instead, it – he – hopped down off of the bed and lazily walked back out to the sitting room.

Not sure what else to do, John followed after, remembering to leave the door open.

“I should get you a collar with a little bell on,” he said.

Sherlock responded by putting his claws into John’s calf, and any doubt John had in his mind was immediately silenced.

  



End file.
